Pippa Middleton, younger sister and bridesmaid to royal bride Kate Middleton, is now dating her very own rich Earl. And his family home is Harry Potter’s Hogwarts!

Pippa (27) is in a serious relationship with George Percy, heir to the Duke of Northumberland. The two have been close for several years.

George is heir to one of Britain’s richest and most prestigious dukedoms. Their huge estate Alnwick Castle, the setting for the Harry Potter wizard school Hogwarts in all the movies. George (27) will one day inherit it all, along with a vast fortune.

Friends of the couple say George and Pippa are very much in love and a wedding may not be far away.

Pippa has been close friends with George for years. They met at Edinburgh University and had a romance in their final year in 2008. Last year they insisted they were “just friends” after he was seen helping her get over her split with banker Alex Louden.

But it seems that the relationship blossomed into love at a New Year’s Eve party thrown by the Middleton family.

A fellow partygoer says Pippa targeted George “like a shark circling its bait.” They intimated that marrying the rich Duke has always been part of her plan. He suggested that the friendship caused tension with her ex-boyfriend Alex Loudon while they were dating.

“After they parted the first thing she did was spend a weekend on George’s estate in Northumberland. But now they are out in the open.”

When George was 14 his father went to court to delay his inheritance, fearing it would go to his head and turning in to a wild child. Instead of getting his fortune at 18, he had to wait until he was 25.

As someone pointed out, with Kate having married the man who will one day be King and if Pippa marries George, it isn’t a bad return on Carole Middleton’s investment when she sent her two daughters to prestigious public schools (as they are called in the UK).